Chapter 5, Poverty in America:

Chapter 5 discusses poverty in America. As poverty relates to the city in which I live and will
do my field placement, poverty is engulfing the city of Detroit. Residences of Urban and Rural
areas usually fall below the poverty threshold. The poverty threshold or poverty line is a federal
standard set to measure the minimum income necessary to sustain a household and its members.
A family composed of single mothers as the head of household is strongly correlated to poverty;
in fact 34.2 percent of female headed households live in poverty (Karger and Stoesz, pg.101).
Detroit is an Urban Area populated primarily by African Americans and single African
American women. According to City Data.com in area code 48201 there are approximately
2,169 residence, of which 40.3% of them live below the poverty threshold. 75% of them are
African American and the median household income is $13,565. A total of 44 percent of
Detroiters live in poverty as compared to 20.7 of the entire State of Michigan (City-Data. 2009).
Most Americans cycle in and out of poverty rather than it being a chronic condition for them.
Poverty comes in many forms that a Social Worker in the City of Detroit would be all too
familiar with. Helping clients access resources such as, Food stamps, TANIF, Supplemental
Security Income, Low income housing is the standard of services that inner city residence
receives. These services are known as the alleviating approach to combating poverty. Combating
poverty in the city of Detroit will have to take a different approach. Half of the residence in the
city of Detroit receives some form of assistance either, Food Stamps, Medicaid, Medicare,
W.I.C. etcetera, Offering these services does help to eliminate the need momentarily. The need
for resources are so great that they only help some of the people some of the time and not all of
the people all of the time.

Chapter 6, The Voluntary Sector Today:

The voluntary sector is comprised of private and nonprofit organizations that are involved in
the social welfare in the United States. Traditional providers can be seen throughout Detroit in
private and nonprofit agencies. They understand the importance of human interaction and
building relationships within the community. The nonprofit organizations that can be seen
working in the communities of Detroit are, The Neighborhood Service Organization (NSO),
Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries (DRMM) and the Salvation Army just to name a few. These
organizations help ease some of the suffering that people in Detroit endure. The voluntary sector
values the community and more often operate without hidden agendas or personal agendas like
Welfare Bureaucrats attempt to do. Welfare Bureaucrats attempt to minimize cost of public
services, marginalize care and increase their own wages. The government bureaucrats are
responsible for runway government spending and running businesses out of Detroit. The city
took on massive effective government debt in the form of unfunded liabilities for government
employee pensions and health care promises (Ferrara, 2013). Welfare bureaucrats ideology
stress a rational, efficient, cost conscious, coordinated delivery system ( Karger & Stoesz pg
125). The city of Detroit is not benefiting from government bureaucrats the city and it resources
have been depleted by their politics. Nonprofit organizations helped to fill in for services that can
no longer be offered at a city or State level. There are numerous challenges that face the city of
Detroit, and as chapter six has shown, the needy are just not popular and do not receive the
financial assistance they need, this is also true for the city.

Chapter 7, Privatization and Human Service Corporations:

Chapter 7 discusses privatization of social welfare services. Privatization of social services
addresses the problem of proper relationship between the public and private spheres of the
national culture ( Karger and Stoesz. pg. 140). Privatizing human services is a way to keep
government from monopolizing the citizens and the services they access. By allowing
proprietary firms to establish human service markets this allows for the increasing demand of
services to be met. Such firms have established nursing homes, hospital management, managed
medical care, childcare and corrections ( Karager& Stoesz. 2013). The problem that has occurred
is Detroit is going through a bankruptcy. Many city ran operations are attempting to go private
this includes trash removal, water and sewage, and the public lighting system are all going
private. The DDOT system which is Detroits primary public transportation system is also
looking to privatize their operations. Privatizing a city ran operation is a way to cut down on
cost to an impoverished city and to pay workers lower wages. Detroits officials, almost all of
whom are a part of the black corporate and political elite, they complain about outside control of
the citys finances because they want to benefit from the carve up of the citys profits that will be
made through privatization ( Porter. L, 2013). The problem with privatization in Detroit is that
many long time workers will get replaced by lower wage workers. The quality and care of
services will be a concern because of private firms trying to maximize on their profits, the
quality of care could become impacted. Privatizing public services in Detroit may be necessary
in order to operate the day to day operations, but it is also perpetuating the cycle of political elite.

Chapter 8, The making of Governmental policy

Chapter 8 is all about the policy process. A policy is first introduced by groups that have
interest in changing or enhancing a part of society. The next step is the formulation process.
Congress and legislators will access the social conditions and develop a policy that is suppose
meet the general concerns. The next step is the most time and cost consuming, Legislation,
much public policy work is conducted by federal a legislators who are appointed to committees
and subcommittees on the basis of their particular interest (Karger &Stoesz. pg 172). The last
phase in the policy process is implementation of the policy. Once the policy has been voted on
and passes the house or the senate it must be signed and implemented. Implementing a policy is
difficult and can cost more money than it does to start the process. When a policy fails to be
enacted, the process has to start again from the beginning. The policy process the city of Detroit
has temporally been interrupted by the emergency financial manager Kevin Orr. Orr has new
power given to him under a new law, Public Act 436, which went into effect on March 27, an
emergency manager has the power to dismiss elected officials, abrogate labor contracts, sell off
public assets and impose new taxes on residents without a vote (Woods, 2013). The democratic
city of Detroit was not at all enthused when they learned that public policies could be overturned
or enacted by just one person. Because Kevin Orr position was given to him by the state
government the highest power in Michigan, his power and ability to halt process and policies
produces a communist system that only works for the working class. Detroit is a city that is high
in poverty, with the bureaucracy of privatizing human services organization the voluntary sector
helps ease some of the suffering the communist dictatorship has left in its wake. Being a social
worker in the city of Detroit will have its own unique set of challenges and rewards.

References
Detroit, Michigan Poverty Rate (2013). Data Information about Poor and Low Income
Residence. Retrieved: November 2, 2014. From www.city-data.com/poverty/povertydetroit_Michigan.html
Ferrara, P. (2013). The American Spectator: Americas Detroit future: Obamas politics and
policies promise nothing less. Retrieved: November 2, 2014. From, www.spectator.org
Karger, J. and Stoesz, D. (2013). American Social Welfare: A Pluralist Approach. Boston:
Allyn& Bacon
Porter, L. (2013). Brutal Budget Cutting, Privatization Planned for Detroit. Retrieved :
November 2, 2014 from: wsws.org
Woods, A. (2013) Detroit Emergency Manager: Gov. Rick Snyder Announces State Financial
Takeover. The Huffington Post. Retrieved; November 2, 2014 from:
www.huffingtonpost.com